Requests for comment/Structural oversight on Wikidata

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Introduction and Statement of the Problem

Dear Wikimedia Community,

I am initiating this Global Request for Comment (RfC) to address a significant structural oversight, an administrative category error, and subsequent bureaucratic neglect on Wikidata that directly contradicts Wikimedia's core data-retention principles.

Local administration has effectively created a deadlock by allowing automated archiving tools to twice bury a valid policy-based appeal without independent human review. Therefore, a global community-wide intervention is required to discuss whether registered national library catalogs and validated national journalism metadata can be wiped out based on non-policy, arbitrary commercial metrics like "bestseller status" or "popularity."

1. The Category Error: Mainstream Journalism vs. Academic Metrics

An editor cataloged the biographical data, entities, and 6 published books of a prominent Journalist/Writer from Turkey.

• The Core Sources: The author's work, profile, and books have been independently reviewed and discussed in mainstream national newspapers in Turkey, such as Sözcü and Yeniçağ (both of which hold their own high-notability Wikipedia articles).
• Encyclopedic References: Crucially, these independent reviews were written by highly senior, notable columnists who themselves hold dedicated Wikipedia biographies, such as Rahmi Turan.

Despite this verified national media presence, the deleting local administrator dismissed these notable secondary sources, treated a mainstream national journalist as a mere "blogger," and executed a sweeping deletion. The profile was collapsed into a distinct academic dataset under the false premise that "the items lacked scholarly citations."

2. Library Catalogs Are Not "Best Seller" Lists

The deletion included 6 legally registered, bandrolled books currently preserved in the National Library database. The local admin justified this by claiming the books "are not widely read or popular."

Wikidata is a universal semantic library catalog; it is not a commercial "Best Seller" list. Popularity, sales volume, or algorithmic trend metrics are nowhere to be found in the WD:N2 (Sources) or WD:N3 (Structural Need) policies. If a bibliographic item is officially registered in a State's National Library and independently analyzed by encyclopedic journalists in the national print press, it fully satisfies the core verifiability and structural standards of the global project.

3. Structural Damage to the WikiCite Initiative

The sweeping deletion dismantled a 46-paper bibliographic dataset and distinct literary concepts (*such as Objective Projection and Narrative Engineering*). Wiping out an entire interconnected semantic data graph directly contradicts the foundational vision of the WikiCite project, which aims to build a comprehensive bibliographic infrastructure within Wikidata. Instead of refining, tagging, or improving the data strings, the local admin chose a massive data graph disruption, breaking valid data strings of interconnected items.

4. Exhaustion of Local Remedies (The Double-Archiving Deadlock)

Local administrative noticeboards on Wikidata have failed to facilitate a healthy discussion, systematically burying this case twice through automated archiving without a single independent administrator response. The complete discussions can be verified in the June 2026 archive page d:Wikidata:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive/2026/06:

1. First Attempt: A formal undeletion request for the main biography item and associated entities was submitted. It was ignored for 7 consecutive days and automatically archived. (Can be found under the section title: "Undeletion request: Q138048287").
2. Second Attempt: A second file was opened to present the policy-based data integrity arguments. This request was left entirely stranded for another 11 days and has now also been automatically archived without human intervention (Section: "Massive Data Graph Disruption (N3)").

Even though a "decoupling" compromise was recently offered via IP—stating that we consent to keep academic pre-prints deleted for now, provided that the mainstream journalist biography (Q138048287) and the 6 National Library books are restored—the local channel remained completely frozen.

Questions for the Community

1. Should officially registered national library catalogs and books reviewed in national mainstream media (with dedicated Wikipedia articles) be subjected to unauthorized commercial "popularity/bestseller" metrics on Wikidata?
2. Is the systematic automated archiving of unresolved administrative oversight cases on local noticeboards without human independent review acceptable under global governance?
3. Should the main journalist biography item (Q138048287) and the corresponding 6 books be restored independently from the academic dataset?

I kindly invite global stewards, interface administrators, and the global editing community to comment on this procedural gridlock and data integrity issue.

Sincerely, LeventBulut (talk) 21:10, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

Procedural Note: This RfC has been formally logged to address the ongoing administrative freeze and lack of independent human review regarding National Library-registered bibliographic data on Wikidata. I kindly invite members of the global editing community, metadata curators, and those aligned with the WikiCite framework to provide their constructive consensus on the questions outlined above. ~2026-35943-60 (talk) 16:14, 21 June 2026 (UTC)

I'm going to be completely honest here: this looks very much like self-promotion here, and while I'm not super familiar with Wikidata, it seems like the sort of thing generally frowned upon, and the deletions were probably in-process and correct. Sesquilinear (talk) 18:57, 21 June 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for your candid input, @Sesquilinear. However, as you noted, you are not familiar with Wikidata's specific structural guidelines. This is strictly a data integrity and cataloging issue, not a "self-promotion" matter.

Wikidata operates on different principles than Wikipedia; it is a universal semantic knowledge base and library catalog. Under the official policy WD:N2 (Sources), if a bibliographic entity is officially registered in a State's National Library and independently reviewed in national mainstream print media (such as Sözcü and Yeniçağ by notable, encyclopedic columnists), it meets the criteria for data retention.

Furthermore, dismantling a 46-paper interconnected semantic dataset directly harms the global WikiCite initiative, which aims to build open bibliographic infrastructure. Dismissing verified national library catalogs and mainstream press data under unauthorized, commercial metrics like "bestseller status" or "popularity" sets a dangerous precedent for systemic bias against non-English literature on Wikidata. This RfC is aimed at addressing that structural oversight. ~2026-35943-60 (talk) 19:11, 21 June 2026 (UTC)

The link you posted doesn't go anywhere. Sesquilinear (talk) 15:06, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

what do you expect to accomplish here? Meta lacks jurisdiction to say that Wikidata admins are incorrectly interpreting Wikidata local policies. * Pppery * _{in solidarity} 02:49, 10 July 2026 (UTC)